Malcom Kyeyune
26 Jun 2025 - 9 mins
The Bush years are back. With the war drums now beating once more, America is stumbling, drunk on jingoistic fervour, to the bad old days of the early 2000s — from the platitudes about regime change, to the shock-and-awe campaigns, to the neocon hacks wheeled out from wherever they were cowering.
Unfortunately, many of the critics of this new war are also stuck in the past. We therefore hear plenty of arguments that Iran will be the new Iraq, the new Syria, the new Libya. Regime change won’t work; occupation will be too expensive; Iran might collapse into a civil war and cause a new refugee crisis in Europe. All these arguments are now being used by critics of a war with the Islamic Republic.
But, in 2025, these arguments seem more than a little presumptuous. Times change, and neither the US economy nor the vaunted US military is equal to what it was when the tanks rolled across the border into Iraq back in 2003. America now faces a far bigger problem than figuring out just how it’ll screw up the aftermath of a blitzkrieg campaign: unrest or even mutinies inside the US military. As the single most dangerous thing that can happen to an unpopular political system, mutinies helped topple the French monarchy and the Berlin Wall. Now, it may be America’s turn — with terrifying consequences for the Republic’s future.
The Bush years are back. With the war drums now beating once more, America is stumbling, drunk on jingoistic fervor, to the bad old days of the early 2000s — from the platitudes about regime change, to the shock-and-awe campaigns, to the neocon hacks wheeled out from wherever they were cowering.
Unfortunately, many of the critics of this new war are also stuck in the past. We therefore hear plenty of arguments that Iran will be the new Iraq, the new Syria, the new Libya. Regime change won’t work; occupation will be too expensive; Iran might collapse into a civil war and cause a new refugee crisis in Europe. All these arguments are now being used by critics of a war with the Islamic Republic.
But, in 2025, these arguments seem more than a little presumptuous. Times change, and neither the US economy nor the vaunted US military is equal to what it was when the tanks rolled across the border into Iraq back in 2003. America now faces a far bigger problem than figuring out just how it’ll screw up the aftermath of a blitzkrieg campaign: unrest or even mutinies inside the US military. As the single most dangerous thing that can happen to an unpopular political system, mutinies helped topple the French monarchy and the Berlin Wall. Now, it may be America’s turn — with terrifying consequences for the Republic’s future.
To understand why mutiny is now a very serious threat, we must first examine the broader geopolitical context. In the Nineties and early 2000s, when America began those unfortunate wars of choice now glibly compared to Iran, the world looked very, very different. Prince Sultan Air Base — the big installation in Saudi Arabia now filling up with military hardware — is akin to the quip about the lightsaber in Star Wars: it is, in fact, a relic of a more civilized age. Prince Sultan, like pretty much every other US airbase, was built in a time when America’s enemies simply lacked the resources to shoot at it. In those days, bombing someone from the air required advanced jet planes; planes that are still so expensive that only a few countries can hope to own them in significant numbers.
Critics of US involvement in Iraq or Afghanistan would often wring their hands about the unfairness and inhumanity of the American way of fighting, given that the US effortlessly blew up its enemies from thousands of feet up in the sky without the victims ever being able to do much about it. These days, however, the ongoing mass adoption of ballistic missiles makes that sort of lament rather moot. The missiles raining down on Tel Aviv show, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you no longer need jet fighters to do a “bombing campaign”. The citizens of Tel Aviv, for their part, are just as helpless in the face of an incoming missile as the goat herders of Afghanistan once were.
[su_unherd_related fttitle=”More from this author” author=”Malcom Kyeyune”]https://unherd-wpml-test.go-vip.net/2025/05/americas-military-humiliation/[/su_unherd_related]
Yes, the Israelis have bunkers. But the IDF’s extremely expensive missile defense offers only threadbare protection: interceptors are rare, slow to manufacture, and are now at risk of running out. More advanced hypersonic missiles usually can’t be intercepted at all. Planes, for their part, have become older, harder to maintain, and tactically less flexible. In fact, given advances in anti-air technology, the primary weapon of most combat planes today is actually just a long-range ballistic missile, small enough to fit on an aircraft and fired from a safe distance. During the Vietnam War, America lost over 10,000 airplanes and helicopters. Today, planes and pilots have become so expensive that replacing them in large numbers isn’t actually feasible. Thirty years ago, Israel could blow up Iranians without the Iranians ever shooting back. Now, though, both sides can throw punches.
For the American military itself, this means that it now has to prepare itself for something it isn’t very good at: being bombed from the sky. This is a huge problem, and not just because American airfields lack hangars capable of withstanding missile strikes, or a doctrine adapted to enemy missile fire. Much more critically, the US Army is now so understrength that it relies on National Guard troops to man its various outposts and bases in the Middle East. These people are part-time soldiers who live and work as civilians until they are called up. This also means the military is extremely hard-pressed to deal with actual battlefield casualties; there simply aren’t that many troops available to serve as replacements.
Few people sign up for the Oklahoma National Guard because of a desire to travel halfway around the world in order to fight against Iran, but unless America goes back to the draft, this is what will happen. But the status of the National Guard might be about to change; flying mostly under the radar, a popular movement calling itself Defend the Guard is working on introducing legislation across dozens of states that would prohibit the deployment of National Guard troops to foreign conflicts without a formal declaration of war by Congress. There are problems with this kind of legislation — including questions about how it would impact funding for Guard units — but the direction of travel is clear. Americans in and around the National Guard are increasingly tired of it being used as just another reserve pool of soldiers to commit to various foreign lands. The problem, however, is that America’s military posture would collapse overnight if it could no longer rely on the Guard.
Then there’s America’s political system — which, as everyone will tell you, is utterly incapable of dealing with significant military casualties. The American public simply doesn’t like seeing flag-draped coffins flown back home, especially when these coffins come from wars that nobody really wanted to begin with. That is why the discussion of war is so fixated on the concept of “boots on the ground”. This fixation is natural, but it is also completely out of step with the times. The way it used to work was that American soldiers had to be physically deployed to a hostile country for the enemy to shoot and kill them. But this is no longer the case, just as Iranians no longer need to be anywhere near Tel Aviv to destroy its homes and trap Israelis beneath the rubble. Of course, even without these proverbial boots, a war with Iran is already incredibly unpopular. The conflict is essentially being forced down the throats of Americans, shattering the political coalition that got Donald Trump elected in the first place.
Yet if all this is fairly well known, the morale of the soldiers themselves is almost never mentioned. For historical reasons, everyone in America, from Left to Right, simply assumes that their soldiers will stoically follow orders, no matter what happens, no matter what those orders are. Throughout history, however, an uncountable number of governments have collapsed because everyone assumed that the soldiers would always follow orders — until they didn’t. When the Cossacks sent in to beat up demonstrators refused to follow orders, the Russian monarchy collapsed. The Berlin Wall protests became a regime-ending crisis because the military and police were ordered to crack skulls and stop the protestors from tearing down the wall, but then refused to do so.
[su_pullquote]”An uncountable number of governments have collapsed because everyone assumed that their soldiers would always follow orders — until they didn’t.”[/su_pullquote]
How likely is it, then, that Trump will give an order to his troops (who are required by law to obey him) only for them to refuse him, revealing another political system at the end of its rope? It’s probably far more likely than most people realize. For one thing, wars often don’t go as planned, and in this particular case the Iranians can actually shoot back in a very significant way. Nor can the US replace casualties without heavily relying on mobilizing part-time soldiers and reservists. How eager will these people be to don their old uniform and fill the shoes of someone who was just killed by an Iranian missile?
This was the problem faced by King Ferdinand VII in 1820, when the Spanish king tried to send another batch of soldiers to the various South American colonies vying for independence. Ferdinand VII was already incredibly unpopular, and the trip to the jungles of New Spain was almost guaranteed to be a one-way affair. Once a large group of soldiers gathered at the port city of Cadiz learned that they were the next in line to be mobilized, they revolted. This soldier’s revolt quickly spread, sparking a massive political crisis that smashed the absolutist system. Trying to send teachers and mechanics from Wisconsin and Oregon to some desert killing field could yet spark something similar.
Trump himself has exacerbated these tensions. The various feuds he has pursued against Democratic governors and states — most notably in California — has already led the White House to mobilize the National Guard and the US Marine Corps to fight protestors rioting over his immigration policy. Judging by some of the reporting, morale is not exactly great among the Guardsmen and Marines being used in this way. Partly, the dissatisfaction comes from the shambolic way in which these troops were deployed to LA (the Department of Defense failed to complete the necessary paperwork in advance to actually pay the troops), but the bigger problem is that soldiers really aren’t supposed to involve themselves in the political process. It is probably a matter of when, not if, Trump’s war policy sparks protests and riots too. Unlike Trump’s harsh immigration measures, however, here he won’t have much in the way of support among any section of the public. And if the police are unwilling or unable to contain the protests, the National Guard may once again need to be mobilized. Once again, they are fully capable of either refusing the call to muster or simply joining the demonstrators. Anti-war protests are not the only vector for riots either: the US economy is in such a parlous state that ordinary Americans are now borrowing money to pay for groceries. Even without a looming war, the US is already unstable, and the political system is breaking down. It will not take much to push it, and its soldiers, over the edge.
You could make the argument that, in the end, America will be safe: its soldiers are just too disciplined. This might have been true at some point, but not today. Moreover, the current all-volunteer military was specifically created because the Vietnam War produced so many cases of ill-discipline, mutiny and even “fragging” — a slang term for soldiers murdering their own officers, where fragmentation grenades chucked into tents became a favourite method of execution.
Americans in uniform have historically been very capable of unruly or rebellious behaviour. Apart from the systematic murder of officers during Vietnam, the so-called 1932 “Bonus Army” — made up of dejected veterans from the First World War who gathered by the tens of thousand to demand early cash redemption for their service certificates — contributed massively to the electoral loss of Herbert Hoover that same year. Of course, both Vietnam and the First World War were fought using conscription, and the US today has a professional military that is supposed to be resistant to rebellious behaviour and breaches in discipline. But professional soldiers are not robots; they can and have historically engaged in mutiny and disobedience. Guardsmen, being part-time soldiers, also live in a world closer to that of reservists in non-US countries that do maintain conscription.
In recent years, due to various failures of the bureaucracy as well as the ballooning budget deficit with which the US is grappling, the payment of various bonuses to both Guardsmen and regular military have become increasingly erratic. Sometimes, enlistment bonuses aren’t paid out, other times it might be cost-of-living adjustment checks fail to arrive on time. These problems with payment also contribute to flagging morale. In a real national crisis, the lack of regular or mandated pay could be another aggravating factor pushing Americans in uniform towards disobedience or mutiny.
[su_unherd_related fttitle=”More from this author” author=”Malcom Kyeyune”]https://unherd-wpml-test.go-vip.net/2025/04/trumps-gorbachev-moment/[/su_unherd_related]
More to the point, unrest is brewing inside the US military right now. In fact, the latest news is that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had to remove a colonel from his position because he was posting, semi-anonymously, extremely venomous remarks against Israel. These remarks included calling Israel a “death-cult” and saying that American soldiers were being made to serve “Netanyahu and his Judeo-supremacist cronies”.
The fact that attitudes like these now exist at the highest levels of the US military, before the fighting has even started, means that they will also be extremely common at lower levels. The US military will no doubt try to ferret out dissenters, but it only takes a few colonels, majors, or captains to listen to the discontent of their men, and then give it an outlet, for a chain reaction to spread. Once one unit refuses to deploy or follow orders, others are far more liable to do the same, and suddenly the state has lost control of the one thing it needs to survive: the monopoly on violence.
Moreover, one only has to look at Trump’s own military parade, held literally when Iran’s missiles were hitting Tel Aviv, to realize that the US military is now deeply unwell. Trump no doubt expected what most people his age expect: that a showing of America’s military would be an impressive, well-coordinated spectacle. But the soldiers that cloudy day in Washington didn’t even know how to march properly, and many of them clearly looked like they didn’t want to be there in the first place. The entire parade was sparsely attended; one got the distinct impression that nobody, either inside or outside the Army, cared about it enough to put in much effort. That’s unsurprising. Some of the soldiers in the parade were drawn from Fort Bragg, a base with a truly sinister reputation for suicides, drug use, and even gangland-style murders. Four years ago, one soldier stationed at Bragg went missing. His headless body washed up later, on Memorial Day, and he wasn’t even the only soldier to be murdered at the base that year.
It seems clear, then, that quite aside from the National Guard, the uniformed military these days is not very reliable either. Enlisted men are restless, suffering from low morale, low pay and an ongoing suicide epidemic. This crisis is in reality far worse than the already grim statistics would indicate; every soldier that takes his own life has a very significant impact on the rest of his unit. The officers, for their part, are jaded, used to dysfunction, and acutely aware of the many military weaknesses that civilian elites either don’t know or care about.
Up to and including Vietnam, most of America’s wars relied on the draft. This meant that politicians always needed to make sure battles didn’t fall too far out of public favor. After Vietnam, where the military nearly fell apart as a result of failing discipline and general political polarization, the all-volunteer model was adopted instead. This has made various “forever wars” in obscure parts of the world politically possible for America’s leaders: civilians have simply detached themselves from the bloodshed. But the result of this is that it has allowed ordinary Americans to increasingly treat their own soldiers as faceless automata, as distant, obedient servants who will always jump to it, who will always give you the victory you asked for, regardless of how miserable the conditions become. But soldiers, too, have a breaking point.
To bewail the stupidity of regime change in Iran is one thing. But to call up teachers and bus drivers from Wisconsin and Oregon, and expect them to cheerfully march into what already looks like the most unpopular war in all of American history, is quite another. The US’s shrinking circle of regime change enthusiasts might be surprised at how close they are to getting what they ordered. Unfortunately for them, it’s in Washington DC, not Tehran, where the powers that be ought to fear America’s soldiers.
Nuts
This article would have been comical a few days ago; today it is just sad.
Indeed, it would have aged extremely badly even if it was written before it became very clear that Trump has no intention of deploying troops to Iran, and that having bombed a specific target he’s eager to leave it at that. There’s a plethora of articles like this, and not just on Unherd of course, which basically go off on some fantasy whereby Trump does something stupid, with disastrous consequences. Ignoring the fact that (at least with regards to Iran) he hasn’t done anything stupid.
You can disagree with what he’s done of course, but you can’t deny he kept it to the minimum, and there’s been no mission creep at all.
Malcolm, the USA Military is NOT going to mutiny. I know a good deal of Military, and mutiny is the very least likely scenario I could think of happening. There is NO chance, it is preposterous.
Almost anything else could happen in USA and the world though – you should be able to come up with some really crazy stuff that may well happen, as the entire world is about to break into a thousand pieces. Every part of it is going undergoing full paradigm change – but the USA Military soldiers? No, they are solid. (their top bosses and leaders are very problematic though)
Clearly, editorial judgment is non existent at UnHerd.
It’s intentional, to provoke a reaction. It’s actually becoming quite boring now.
And boring is the one unforgivable sin.
Isn’t the point of UnHerd to hear differing perspectives? I thought the piece meets that standard and includes a readable argument about a potentially serious issue. I don’t think the case was made as well as it could have been (maybe we simply don’t have good data on troop morale over the decades), but I don’t get the complaints here that it shouldn’t have been run at all.
I clicked the piece actually worried I might learn about a serious problem that had gone unreported. But there’s nothing here. No facts. The only bit that actually relates to troop morale is a singular cite to the Guardian (as an aside I’ll leave you to evaluate whether the Guardian might have motivation to cast Trump’s response to immigration riots in a negative light). It’s as though the author discovered normal every day dysfunction inherent in a massive, sometimes rigid institution like the military and wrote about its total collapse. It is not indicative of disciplined thinking. Was any air time given to the obvious counterarguments? Rising recruitment numbers, the likelihood of an increased budget to nearly $1 trillion, the execution of a flawless strike in Iran. The article doesn’t even stand in its own logic. It simultaneously excoriates the decision to strike Iran and prompt another war while also saying troops don’t want to be deployed to keep the peace at home or protect the border. It doesn’t strike me as a insightful read of the situation. It’s much more indicative of the author willing something to be the case and then selecting the facts to back up.
Sure. The Right is better at debate right now than the Left. Unherd introduces predominately left wing perspectives that generally get met with pushback because left wing arguments don’t meet the rational threshold of the audience.
At the end of the day, it’s hard to find intelligent arguments for bad ideas and the left is almost all bad ideas at the moment, because it all funnels back to globalist logic. Globalism, like Marxism, is a reasonable and logical philosophy based on bad premises. These philosophies make assumptions about humanity that are demonstrably wrong and/or believe they can alter aspects of human nature and society to fit their philosophies when there’s no evidence that’s reasonable or possible.
The reason the right/left dynamic was so enduring was that both sides had a point. The right argued for efficiency, small government, pragmatism, national strength, etc. The left argued for the people, the working class and kept upper class exploitation of power and wealth to an acceptable level. Both sides were needed to keep a healthy balance. They pulled in opposite directions and the center was a more or less stable medium.
We could fill volumes discussing how and why it happened, but the bottom line is that globalism undermined the traditional right/left dynamic and upset the balance that kept political order in western civilization. Now we have a weird situation where the party pushing for small government, strong defense, efficiency, and austerity is the right, and the party arguing for the interests of the working class and championing their cause is….. also the right. There’s a mismatch between the parties and their traditional alignment. The Republican party has elements of both the old right and the old left. We have a Republican talking about factory workers and union jobs and, there’s a Kennedy serving in a Republican administration. The key divide is nationalism vs. globalism. The Republican party is at this point a nationalist party that cuts across social classes fairly completely, while the Democrats are the party of the globalist establishment that thought history ended in 1992.
I don’t expect this to become a new political axis on a permanent basis because unlike the traditional left/right paradigm, there’s nothing that’s gained from balancing both sides against each other. There’s no coherent factor of human motivation or behavior that suggest globalism contributes something enduring and balances against nationalism, because nationalism is basically tribalism and tribalism is basically collectivism and the opposite of collectivism is already known. That would be individualism, and we have enough of that in the US. Rather we suffer from an excess of individualism and need to remember that there are some things we have to do collectively as a nation and some ways individualism has to be checked.
When the comments section is better written than the article…
Excellent comment.
The DOD measures troop morale every single year. It was really really bad under Biden – shocker.
I wholly agree. The vociferous Trumpist army that constitutes the Unherd btl commentariat remains unwaveringly loyal to itself, but does by no means represent all of us.
I agree, I subscribe to Unherd in order to read articles that challenge and even annoy, as well as those that echo my sentiments. If you don’t expose yourself to opposing opinions, how can you know the full story? This one was not as high a quality as some others published here though. There are some wish fulfillment articles on here, often from people extrapolating Trump’s actions from his words, which are commonly very different to the policies he actually enacts
They sure edit what I can say in my mad postings…..
although now days they seem to let them slide in later, after they had time to think about it……
The new U.S. editor is obviously a plant for the hard left.
I’m getting rather tired of apples to oranges comparisons and trite analogies from Europeans about American subjects they know absolutely nothing about. Context matters, history matters, localities matter, and trends matter. Iran declared the “12 Day War” over and there is no sign the Trump administration is even considering boots on the ground. It’s not just America either. What is it with Iran and pundits coming off as morons? Look, simple bit of advice for anyone covering or writing about the current conflict in the Middle East right now. Write what you are going to write, stop, take a deep breath, don’t publish, and wait at least a few days. There is a good chance you will save yourself from embarrassment and if you were right congratulate yourself and appreciate being the first or loudest is overrated.
What is happening at UnHerd? Nothing could be more herdish, than this bovine bollocks.
I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that UnHerd was a bit of a respite from the brain-dead nonsense that passes for journalism these days. This is seemingly no longer the case. Why have you decided to join the herd?
Just wasted four minutes reading nothing.
I only read the headline and first line of the article. Then jumped straight to the comments. Glad I didn’t waste any time on it.
The fact that Blue America is overwhelmed by paid protesters and street activists is a problem that the Author is gleefully promoting. The Military is not immune from Socialist persuasion. But military enrollment is up as should be expected now that recruitment is no longer assailing masculinity.
When your society develops a 20 year infatuation with hating itself there are consequences. But these things happen in the course of a Republic. There are ebbs and flows. At least now we have terminology to identify what we’re dealing with.
I think its extremely healthy to voice criticism at an American President. Our ability to engage in self-criticism is a virtue. But the founders of the American Republic structured the system in a way that allows us to deal with our problems openly via debate. That’s what you’re seeing with Trump and the “anti-government reactionaries” opposing him.
He’s an incredibly transparent President that makes things happen and doesn’t cower and back down. He’s consistently made the right moves even when it meant temporarily irritating his base. He thinks long term. Its been a good couple weeks for President Trump. A note to the Naysayers- You can criticize but the first rule of holes is when you’re in one…stop digging.
Wow. This has to be one of the worst essays ever published in Unherd. Does the author even realize the DOD surveys soldiers every single to gauge morale? Don’t link to some effing personal anecdotes from a Guardian article. This is so lazy that it’s actually gross. The reality is these surveys showed historically low morale under the Biden administration. I don’t think the survey has been conducted yet for Trump’s first year, but we know actual recruitment has skyrocketed under Trump.
I won’t even get into the Iran garbage. This was clearly written before the bombings.
Something unfortunate is happening at Unherd. My strong impression is they cannot meet their self-imposed production level of a new issue every day with three long articles per day. I don’t blame them. Producing that much worthwhile content is doubtless difficult.
Yesterday, I commented on their latest article predicting the disintegration of the maga coalition. They had published essentially the same article several times already (plus an episode on Undercurrents) and they were now making sausage from sausage.
This morning I watched a video of Flo Read hosting a debate about the Israel/Iran conflict. For some reason, Flo decided to wear an absolutely ridiculous costume for the event. It might sound like a minor matter (and to an extent it was) but it’s hard to believe Unherd, or Flo, still expects to be taken seriously when the presenter shows up in that rig.
I feel Unherd has lost control of standards in an attempt to provide a large amount of content. I greatly admired their early journalism, especially during covid, but I feel perhaps they should reduce their publication schedule and refocus their efforts on quality. I would still willingly subscribe if Unherd was published twice per week instead of every day.
I completely agree. I will be forever grateful for Unherd as about the only sane place to go during Covid. There’s still a lot of really good stuff, but too much in particular of the stuff about Trump recently is just what-if speculation based on things that haven’t happened and he hasn’t done.
Seconded, well said sir.
No – they need to produce volume to stay relevant.
They could get some franchises though – like some from Sachs, or Daniel Davis, or any experts out there who blog and self publish – the New Media guys who would shoot in some of their writings possibly cheaply.
Mostly here seems ex-Guardian types who have seen the light a bit, and manage to bite their tongues enough to make the articles more mainstream.
Years ago I once replied to the bit where they solicit writing from the public; inviting to submit a story brief – they never even replied to say H*ll No, or, thank you for your interest but no thanks. (I was going to tell of a Yeti run in I had way off in the winter snow covered forests, alone in a remote camp, about 2 a.m. in the dazzling moon lit snowy world…. but then I suppose it would be hard to shoe-horn into this magazine and what it is about.)
***********
”Contribute to UnHerdWe welcome applications to contribute to UnHerd – please fill out the form below including examples of your previously published work.”
Same. I post here under a pseudonym but in ‘real life’ have been a successful writer with several viral articles, and have been complimented many times on my writing abilities. Unherd didn’t even reply.
Indeed, and there have been one or two more articles about the Iran war since you said that. It’s bizarre and out of character for UnHerd. I can only guess that the war lasting all of two weeks has messed up their publishing schedule. It’s like they had this stock of articles about the Iran war and they’re stuck with them. They probably already paid for these articles and they have no choice but to publish them even though they don’t make much sense in light of the past few days.
I agree. And UNHERD shows a very obvious dislike for Trump and MAGA. In addition, this writer extrapolates from a suicide at Fort Bragg to suicides being endemic throughout the army. Shoddy article, one of several recently from UNHERD.
I found Phil’s comment faulty. Whenever there is a conservative essay on this blog, 85 percent of the voters support it. Every time!
What do you expect? Shoddy writer writes a shoddy article.
I also agree. Quality, not quantity, please.
Hear hear! I also feel that what you describe is leading to (some of) their writers attracting the kind of criticism that’s happening with this article, and it may well be having a detrimental effect on the writers themselves. There’s no way they don’t read comments – what’d be the point of writing if you didn’t take any notice of the response?
In addition (and i won’t go into detail) but their methods of disabling or withdrawing comments from publication is “all over the place”. There are perfectly good reasons why any online platform, especially one that purports to serious debate, needs to prevent itself from being open to misuse by either malign actors, bots, or just idiots, but Unherd’s methods don’t fulfil that purpose, having a seeming randomness that many others have noted.
Finally, interesting to note the header for this article has now been altered; one might say, toned down.
I agree. And they are now manipulating the thumbs up ratings. I have proof.
Something has happened to this once great outlet, but I’m done. I wish you all the best. I have enjoyed reading so many of your responses over the years.
I don’t think he listened to the rangers involved in the anniversary either.
And with the war now basically over from a US standpoint and possibly over for Israel and Iran as well, the article doesn’t even make sense. The idea that dropping fourteen bunker busters and firing a handful of missiles at Iran could tank morale sounds like an absurd butterfly effect theory in light of the events of the past week. The more likely reality is that UnHerd guessed wrong about what course the war would take. They figured it would go on for several weeks or months whether the government ever put troops on the ground or pursued regime change. They prepared some articles in advance to publish a few at a time over the next few weeks. Then Trump ended the war less than two weeks after he entered it, ruining their publishing plans. This would be a great time for an article from one of the regular writers that admits this is what happened. A bit of humorous self-deprecation is often the best way to gracefully admit an understandable mistake.
Yes. Great response. Everyone should stop slagging UnHerd. We’ve all enjoyed many good reads here. Just be more patient.
Who do you think should pen the apologia?
Our Left is famously good at letting its fantasies guide its analyses, but this is at another level. It’s wet-dreaming with column inches.
Congratulations, Malcolm. You’ve reached Elysium.
Pulitzer! Pulitzer!
deleted
Sorry, off topic. It seems that every comment I make on UnHerd these days is deemed off limits by the moderators.
BTW, I by and large agree with what you have to say.
Obviously from your comment and the ones below ::
YES MAGA IS TOAST.
U drank up the Disney Political Mikey
now U wake up to reality .
Completely Agree.
Unherd has resorted to pumping out left-wing garbage more suitable to Guardian readers it is no longer worth subscribing to.
Just when I am thinking about renewing my already cancelled subscription to Unherd, I get overwhelmed by a tidal wave of crap like this article.
It just serves to reinforce the earlier decision.
This author is not worth reading! The comments beneath his articles certainly are worth the effort!
is there a chance of Mutiny in the US Army, erm no not really
Should defence budgets be more catered to the wellbeing of the troops on the ground yes.
America does not get it’s money worth with it’s now 1 trillion budget.
the individual soldiers should be the priority of any army
in the UK , soldiers, (+ Airforce, Navy) should get priority for social housing, ensured training, education once out of service. They frankfully should be treated better than others in a society, i’m not ex military i have no problem with veterens getting preferential treatment in many areas
Instead we give to illegals, many who hate us and want to destroy our society
“Preferential treatment” is what banana republics and dictatorships give their militaries. It shouldn’t happen in a decent society. They should be paid well for doing a sometimes hard and dangerous job such that they don’t need council assistance and can afford their own education. Remember that whatever they get they have their food and lodging (among other things) paid for so this will look different to a “normal” salary. I looked up a private’s salary – 25k start – seems about right given the level of skill needed to join as a private.
Personally I think it is about time we restricted voting to citizens who have shown commitment to their Country. Either by serving in the military or by birthing children. If you do neither then you are just a freeloader and don’t deserve to be able to decide your Nation’s trajectory.
I suppose this is what America looks like from Sweden, depending on the anti-Trump and I daresay anti-American media, and applying European analogues to try to make sense of the extremely biased reporting.
I have generally been impressed by the author’s previous columns, but in this case am reminded of the wry old adage that you can remain silent and people will wonder if you know anything, or you can open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Seriously? This guy doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. We serve the Constitution and the People. There will never be a mutiny.
A century too early perhaps? I know UnHerd likes a variety of opinion but surely there is a better socialist/marxist out there.
Maybe they could hire Jeremy Corbyn.
He’s still hiding from the train video.
An exemplar of why I’m happy I recently cancelled…
Did you just mutiny?
Oh noooo, don’t cancel, this is the best entertainment!
I’m not renewing either and my subscription runs out this month. The quality and bias has gotten awful.
Where is it better?
Sorry, I must have accidentally subscribed to the Babylon Bee.
Everyone is ignoring the fact that Trump gave Iran 60 days to respond to the “no nuke” demands. On the 61st day they dropped 13 30 ton bunker busters on the facilities. After that he got Israel in line and obedient again. Trump does not want war. If anything happens now it’s the deep state in the US or regime change interests from London who have nasty little covert fingers going there, in Ukraine, in the Baltics and other places trying to re-establish the British empire while their own people crumble back home. Trump knows what is going on.
Why the downvotes?
You have problems with calendar, bro
“The Berlin Wall protests became a regime-ending crisis because the military and police were ordered to crack skulls and stop the protestors from tearing down the wall, but then refused to do so.” Not what happened in 1989. The East German government under Krenz announced that East Germans would be able to travel to the West through the Wall. People only started to destroy the Wall, once it was clear that the troops would not fire on people crossing into West Berlin.
The Wall was knocked down from our side. The East Germans made the mistake of building it right on the line, so the outer face was ours to do with as we pleased. Can you imagine East German soldiers gunning down West Germans? That was never going to happen. The Wall was there to keep the East Germans in, not the West Germans out.
In fact I heard, shortly afterwards, that the whole thing started as a drunken lark. Beer and sledge hammers; an awesome combination.
As Darth Vader said to his young Padawan, “the ignorance is strong in this one”
Where to begin? Since other commenters have addressed many of the other issues in this article, I’ll speak to one that I have some expertise in.
Every state National Guard is a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States Army (or Air Force, if it’s the Air National Guard). The requirements, training and expectations are the same as their full-time counterparts. Being transparent, obviously full-time Soldiers and Airmen may have some higher levels of training, but most of the data from the last 20+ years of deployments shows that a) the National Guard and Army Reserves perform conventional (and in many cases, unconventional) missions nearly as well as the full-timers. Fun fact – We have an Special Forces Group in the National Guard – I can GUARANTEE none of those guys joined to “guard” their state. They joined to serve as military operators worldwide.
After the Vietnam War, the force structure was redesigned SPECIFICALLY to put combat power (i.e. infantry, armor, artillery, combat aviation, air defense, special forces) into the State National Guards. Why? Very few guard units were deployed in Vietnam and one of the observations was the President could engage troops in large scale ground combat without impacting local communities. In the aftermath of the war, Congress wanted to make sure that any large scale deployment of US ground forces would require National Guard mobilizations and impact local communities. Explicit in this design was putting combat arms soldiers into the Guard – I can assure you that nearly everyone who signs up for a National Guard Infantry (or any other combat arms branch) unit fully expects (and in many cases, hopes for) a combat tour. National Guardsmen are soldiers and airmen, not uniformed do-gooders. There is a reason the tape over the left breast says “US Army” or “US Air Force”
And on the Air National Guard side, those squadrons and wings are vital to the US military’s global business. We have had guardsmen and women operating every day of every year supporting overseas operations. That’s a feature, not a bug.
Egads, I’m not sure where to begin with this claim:
You could make the argument that, in the end, America will be safe: its soldiers are just too disciplined. This might have been true at some point, but not today. Moreover, the current all-volunteer military was specifically created because the Vietnam War produced so many cases of ill-discipline, mutiny and even “fragging” — a slang term for soldiers murdering their own officers, where fragmentation grenades chucked into tents became a favourite method of execution.
I’ll just simply say that fragging was not the reason we created an all-volunteer Army. The primary driver was to professionalize the force, address perceived equity concerns, save money and politics. A simple google search will turn up the “Gates Commission Final Report”
Also curious about source of the “shambolic” claim about deployments in Los Angeles this year. Reasonable people can debate the utility of the deployment, but the claim of shambolicness is completely unfounded. Aside from the pitiful attempts by a few congresspeople to claim that guardsmen sleeping on floors was evidence of maltreatment and “poor planning”, I’ve heard nothing about this from Soldiers and Marines who are actually serving there ( I know many of them ). I can assure you that service members have been sleeping on floors during emergency mobilizations for the entire history of our nation. Emergency deployments, by their nature, are unplanned.
Finally, this paragraph:
It seems clear, then, that quite aside from the National Guard, the uniformed military these days is not very reliable either. Enlisted men are restless, suffering from low morale, low pay and an ongoing suicide epidemic. This crisis is in reality far worse than the already grim statistics would indicate; every soldier that takes his own life has a very significant impact on the rest of his unit. The officers, for their part, are jaded, used to dysfunction, and acutely aware of the many military weaknesses that civilian elites either don’t know or care about.
Have you ever spoken to an army officer in your life? Yes, there are a few jaded ones. No different than any other career field. But I’d be willing to bet that the percentage of jaded, used-to-dysfunction journalists is far in excess of US army officers.
Great comment.
The fragging comment by the writer is beyond the pale.
What on earth makes the writer even contemplate the US putting boots on the ground in Iran.
Not a chance, there is no way Trump is going to fall for that one, he has the most powerful military in the World under his command, as he demonstrated in the bombing of Iran’s nuclear bunkers.
The only soldiers going into Iran, if any, would be in the form of someone else’s army, think Ukraine.
The Trump govt are quite capable of engaging proxies, as Iran has done, from other Govts who are terrified of Iran and it’s influence in their region.
Never say never. Especially when Bibi is directing US policy. Big Trump fan here praying every day he can keep Bibi on leash and not become his dog.
No doubt uncomfortable reading for anyone who’s never served, but nothing of great surprise to those who have. ‘Morale is to physical as three is to one’ as a Corsican Corporal once said.
However the notion of US combat troops getting involved in Iran is for the birds. For a start anyone ever looked at a map? The simple geography of Iran would make any major invasion v difficult and it’s geography and natural topography explains much of how it formed and held together. Thus the involvement of US troops, beyond perhaps some Special Forces, is never happening for practical as well as political reasons. Ordnance strikes from distant, yes, but that’d remain limited. First time a US pilot shot down and paraded on Iranian TV…
No the more likely morale collapse would come from internal deployment against protesters, as the Author suggests (albeit after the twaddle about Iran). One suspects Trump and his sycophants running the Pentagon learnt a few lessons on that already from LA.
The one truism about military morale is the core loyalty that keeps a Unit moving is the espirit de corps amongst itself and the loyalty to those around you and who lead you. It’s much more ‘micro’ than ‘macro’. And thus what’s the sentiment of your thousands of NCO level officers crucial if you want to gauge the current temperature.
Maybe you are right, but as the author has simply said that morale is low without providing any shred of evidence to support this assertion, the question of morale does not seem relevant at the moment.
Geography and topography didn’t keep US troops out of Iraq or Afghanistan, so why should that argument apply to Iran? The US has been trying to overthrow Iran since 1979 and nothing has worked. I’m sure there are neocons at Brookings and at RAND hard at work to make a plan for the US to invade Iran.
Purely in self-defense, of course. As always. But I do agree that soldiers engaged in direct combat against a foreign opponent are less likely to suffer low morale than when they are sent to beat down their fellow citizens. I suppose a trip back into the history of US military suppression of labor movements would shed some light there.
The British Army had no compunction when sent to “beat down their fellow citizens”*to use your words. In fact many rather enjoyed it.
*The Irish.
Again, the DOD surveys troops every year to gauge morale. It reached 20 year lows under Biden. It’s too early to measure troop morale under Trump, but I would be shocked if it doesn’t improve. Recruitment has certainly improved under Trump. By the way, those riots in LA are over now because someone actually made the effort to stop them. I would suggest forced vaccinations had a much bigger impact on troop morale then sending 800 marines into LA.
What utter poppycock!
The author obliviously cannot stomach the fact that in a matter of a mere five months President Trump is proving to be the most decisive US President since FDR.
My only fear is that essays such as this only make his assassination more likely, as the ‘enraged’ cannot be reconciled. The ghost of Caesar is never far away.
I am more than happy for Unherd to publish articles I don’t instinctively agree with. But they have to be well written and researched articles.
Some recent articles have just been intellectual posturing, dressing up mere opinions as ‘obvious’ facts.
My renewal subscription comes up in a couple of months. We shall see.
I bet exactly none of the most chest-beating UnHerd Trump cultists who are attacking this article have ever served in the US military yourselves. Or any other military. The American Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps are just fantasy-props in your increasingly unhinged fantasy world view.
Any soldier or ex-soldier anywhere in the world who isn’t nauseated by the way the Ass Clown President – Draft-Dodger-&-Reality-TV Tough-Guy-in-Chief – is exploiting and disrespecting the American military’s sense of dignity, sacrifice, capability and idealism…is, or was, a sh*thouse one.
Great (and genuinely herd-dissenting) article.
An articulate, hyperbolic polemic. Don’t clutter up the pages of UnHerd with ideological claptrap.
Total nonsense clickbait. Sadly it worked on me. And if you’re reading this comment, presumably you too.
This is one of those times where I read the first and last paragraphs and went straight to these fabulous comments!
I read a couple of paragraphs, which had become the norm with UnHerd and dropped to the comments, where the true discussion lies. It’s more of a forum these days than a useful publication.
I’m normally one to religiously read line by line until I understand an article before commenting, but with Unherd I now drop to the comments first to see whether it’s worth the effort. Time is too short to waste.
I don’t agree with this at all.
For all the reader criticism and un-truisms in the article there is a germ of truth within which is that it may come down to a reality check for Trump if he calls on a military where he has lost credibility .
More garbage. This is getting serious.
I never understood why Unheard keeps pushing the pieces of the weakest, most sensationalistic and superficial columnist they employ, who a quick search also reveals has no real knowledge of American politics, military and society, has dubious connections and has a Marxist past. I’m sad to see a publication I held in such high esteem and still think publishes some of the best voices descend into the mediocriry of click baiting. I thought you were better than that.
At the bottom of this ridiculous article there is an editorial comment “do you like what you are reading?”.
Where is the box I can tick that says “no”?
When the 12 Day War began, a song gleefully celebrating Iranian missiles raining down on Israel called ‘Boom Boom Tel Aviv’ quickly went viral. It turned out the man who made it was a former US marine.
I would honestly expect more political insight from our family cat. Not only does the author demonstrate his complete impressive ignorance of the situation within the US military, but he’s wrong with the type of confidence is normally expect from a hallucinating ChatGPT
Honestly one of the craziest pieces I’ve ever read on Unherd. Absolutely terrible.
What a very peculiar piece. The uninformed writing about the uniformed.
The entire premise hangs on the idea that the US is about to get involved in a large-scale, attritional ground war – yet backs that up with nothing at all, except maybe some TDS inspired wishful thinking. No mention either that Trump is wildly popular among those in the US armed services
I’m sorry to say this but it reads like a Guardian piece where everything to do with Trump’s America is viewed through the most negative lens, where malign motives are ascribed to every action, and worst case scenarios are the only suggested future.
I have no problem with writers who are critical of Trump. God knows, he gives them plenty of ammunition. But such writers should at least have to make a case for their criticism, not simply deliver a conjecture-backed screed.
The attack on Iran’s nuclear sites was purely a USAF affair. There were no “boots on the ground” involved so the author’s central thesis is specious.
Hmm, this piece has certainly brought the Trump-fanciers out in hives!
I happened to visit West Point during the election campaign. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask the officer cadets, if they had worked out in their own minds what orders they would and would not obey, if Trump was re-elected.
After all, this is a man with a proven track record for unscrupulousness, recklessness, and zero respect for the American constitution. Back in 2019-20, Gen Mark Milley, the then chairman of the Joint Chiefs, had to think long and hard about what would happen if Trump tried to use the military to keep him in power. I suspect there is a good reason that Milley was un-personed, in fine Stalinist style, when Trump regained power.
Trump may have an apparently reckless disregard for some niceties, but one can’t fail to notice that in his speeches he consistently laments loss of lives in combat wherever and however this occurs. So it is reasonable to conclude he does genuinely care about military and civilian casualties, and wants to minimize these.
Question now resolved.
Could the world fall apart?’ ‘Will we return to our tribal roots before a world driven by AI explodes?’ The piece reeks of pearl clutching. For a topic like this, I would much rather read something that’s grounded in reality rather than speculation. Building an argument by weaving together disparate and, frankly, prosaic facts is really reaching for it. The idea that the army’s morale is low and that may contribute to its ineffectiveness seems more compelling to me.
Son, you need to get out more. Recruitment for the U.S. military was so low under the Alleged President Joe Stolen regime that reinstating the draft was under consideration. Latest statistics show that under this administration they have already met their quotas for the entire year. And morale? Never higher.
Trump has shown himself to be a master negotiator and peacemaker, stating clearly that Iran, ruled by a suicidal death cult of pure hatred, must not have a nuclear weapon, then taking the necessary steps to ensure it so. He then immediately brokered a cease-fire that very likely will lead to long-term stability.
Now all that’s left is to begin the process of dragging the U.K. out of the cesspool in which its leaders have dragged IT. Physician, heal thyself.
Who is this idiot and what is he doing here ?
He seems unaware that the US is quite capable of taking large scale military casualities when it comes to the crunch. And did so in WWI and WWII.
Through all the weirdness, the author has a good point. The US Armed Forces are nothing like they once were. Although our pilots and ground crews are pretty awesome.
I suspect that “large-scale casualties” would cause a lot of men to just walk away. That’s very different from a ‘mutiny’.
I certainly wouldn’t judge them.
Delete my comments all you want, this article is a load of old rot, one of the weakest ever published on this site.
The theme here was headlined about the threat of mutiny by US military. What we get is a history lesson, both recent and receding, sprinkled with some political science.
No first or second hand evidence of author embedding or interviewing people in uniform for their thoughts or attitudes.
Mutiny, of course, is always a prospect. The situation right now is far far from ripe for it. Absent data and facts let’s carry on.
Horrible article. Laughable, really. The author’s “evidence” for low troop morale was a cross-link to some propaganda article in the Guardian. No actual reporting here. We subscribe to UnHerd specifically to avoid that type of narrow thinking. Did this guy even get out of his bedroom (in Sweden) while writing this?
This is a series of speculations glued together by guesswork. I waded through the whole thing waiting for some evidence. Came there none.
“The National Guard resents President Trump’s use of it for political ends” … so claims the e-mail trailing this article. Really? If this refers to the use of the National Guard to quell violent disorder in California, then I’d like to know what kind of thing the National Guard would expect to be used for. It’s one of a government’s key jobs to maintain order and protect the law abiding majority. Maybe it’s the local Democrat politicians who are playing politics by refusing to prioritise public order and safety?
Whenever I read something like this, it just confirms to me how out of touch some commentators are with what most ordinary people think. When self-styled “radicals” go on the rampage and start burning and looting, the progressive politicians and keyboard warriors cheer them on – and the local people are left to count the cost and clear up the mess. Remember it’s ALWAYS the poorest who suffer most when law and order break down, because they have to live and work in those places – and it’s invariably the minority owned business that are looted and gutted by fire.
Similar thing with immigration – Trump’s policies being “harsh” according to this writer. Harsh for who? The law abiding majority – including the many immigrants who arrived legally, followed the rules and contribute to society – are sick to death of being taken for fools. It’s not “compassionate” to let criminals get away with their actions – it’s unfair, lazy and destructive. And again, who suffers most?
The author seems unaware that the Oath of Enlistment includes a promise to defend the country from its enemies “foreign and domestic “. National Guardsmen and Marines deployed to LA are being expected to do no more than their oath requires.
Soldiers join up to fight. They are , in their own minds, warriors. I suspect that the author has never served in a military. This nonsense about mutiny is laughable. I like that Unheard will publish articles from all perspectives but this one is poor in the extreme. Speculation at best – hyperbole at worst.
The collapsing standards of the New UnHerd on display again today.
The readers’ reactions confirm the article’s impact—it struck a chord. Indeed, the U.S. couldn’t take Iran down, largely due to some of these constraints.
Oh, for God’s sake, Kyeyune. Put another record on. The needle’s stuck on this one.
After close to 4 years of dismal U.S. Army recruiting numbers during the Biden Administration, resulting in the Administration lowering of recruitment standards, a surge in recruitment appeared in Nov/Dec 2024 after Trump’s election. In 2025 Army recruitment is 5 months ahead of schedule. Hopefully the standards are being raised back up.
OMG, please stop. Morale started sucking under Biden and his puppeteers, as the habit of attacking white troops for being white caused those in to abandon careers and those who considered joining to make alternate plans. In other words, the leadership’s dabbling with wokism bit the services in the a$$. Who could have possibly predicted that?
It is true that no one wants to march into Tehran, but that has always been true. The only people who have yearned for this war are the members of Congress, the defense industry, and the chattering class who are in no danger of having to fight it. Few things are easier than being a keyboard warrior.
It is strikingly convenient that a piece that could have been published at multiple times in the last several years only now sees the light of day. Since Trump took office, enlistment has GONE UP. That is hardly a sign of persistent morale issues.
This is just a guy with an axe to grind stringing together ideas in a desperate attempt to make a national security argument against Trump. I doubt his facts but more importantly it’s hilarious that morale (if low which I doubt) would be blamed on a president in power six months rather than the last four years of mismanagement by the democrats. It’s a sign of the hilarious optimism and total failure of the democrats to understand US voters that they think the troops might be adverse to the kind of muscular change trump represents and instead that presented with real change and dynamism red blooded American doers are pining for Kamala Harris.
Why has enlistment soared and already hit tis annual objectives? If morale was low it is being reversed.
Very thoughtful and thought-provoking essay.
Mutiny within the US military seems unlikely at the moment, as the US is not engaged in any conflicts that require troops on the ground. Indeed, that is the motivation for using Ukraine and Israel as proxies against America’s enemies Russia and Iran.
But the US has a long-term problem with recruitment and had to resort to mandatory re-deployments during the war against Afghanistan. In addition, salaries and living conditions for soldiers are lousy and a good number of soldiers use Food Stamps (now called SNAP) to buy basic groceries.
So, the US is facing the military problems that many empires face as they grow old and the home population is no longer excited to join voluntarily or by requirement. The US eliminated its military draft around 1973 because of resistance to the Vietnam war and there is no political appetite to reinstate it (although draft registration is still required).
The US military today is a mercenary force and the main incentive for recruitment is that it provides an escape path from dead-end poverty.
That is not the best recipe for high morale, even though the likelihood of revolt is low.
Piffle.
So someone’s fantasy published as an essay based on fact. Sad
I like this sort of polemic.
Knowing their dreams is useful. These sort of hallucinations are the reason Hamas did Oct 7.
And they are still hoping the globalist care givers of terrorists (the un) will rescue them.
An article from a Swedish based avowed Marxist.
Wow!
Of course we can place proper value on his insights.
Utter claptrap. Another Euro-dipshit article obviously written before the 12 Day War by someone with zero experience or knowledge of the US force structure or the current state of morale within the US armed forces. Ending the US government experiment of using the military as a social Petri dish has done miracles with regard to morale and retention. Not believing that a chain of command chock full of the mentally ill worshipping at the alter of woke or dreaming of fame and fortune as cross dressing drag queens would allow the likes of this author to realize that most people join the military for myriad reasons, not just to have their gonads removed to become a shemale while abhorring the thought of breaking a nail in combat.
Speaking as one who served 8 years in The World’s Finest, I can attest that not one of my fellow jarheads joined for any other reason than to learn a trade, travel to foreign lands, meet exotic peoples, and eat their lunch. Even the closeted gays.
Maybe the left should ponder that point.
This was marketed as a Special Report. But it’s neither special nor a report.
This must be the most ill-informed and silly article ever to appear on unHerd. Malcom Kyeyune evidently has no knowledge or experience of the US military whatsoever and precious little understanding of US politics.
No, the American military will not mutiny.
Nor did it ‘nearly fall apart’ after Vietnam.
No, ordinary Americans are not ‘increasingly treating their own soldiers as faceless automata.’
Nor will American soldiers, sailors, marines, and pilots all magically turn into squirrels or unicorns or werewolves at the next full moon.
Honestly, where does this nonsense come from?
Silly question, I guess, it comes from the pen of a freelance writer who lives in Sweden and has a podcast, presumably with subscribers, who evidently like listening to silly stuff like this.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, this inexplicably execrable article presented no data to support the premise of the title. It did mention a similar situation under King Ferdinand the 7th in 1820 with no data to support the statement. (The author inexplicably did not present the data from the 1917 Russian revolution in which mutiny of the armed forces played an important role).
Were I the faculty advisor to a rural high school paper and was handed this paper by a freshman, I would ask for a rewrite. Given that this was handed in by someone with no qualifications other than being a blogger, I do not understand why I was not rejected.
Unherd has become increasingly reliant on bloggers and substack writers without a reputable hinterland. That’s not what I pay my sub for.
Suggestions for other Unherd Content:
Undercooked, Underfed and Over There: Decline in US Military Dining Facility Quality Threatens NATO Cohesion and Emboldens Our Adversaries
The New “Color Revolution”: GOP Infighting Over Official MAGA Hat Colors Reveals Cracks in a Fragile Regime
The USAAF Conducted Thousand-Bomber Raids in WW2, But Only Fielded Six in the Iran Nuke Strike: Anemic Numbers Embolden Putin and Xi
This article is a fine example of why I’m not renewing my subscription….
After reading half of this nuttiness I scrowled up to see who wrote it. A look at his picture told me all I needed to know. Opium must be coming back in vogue.
He links a long piece on suicide in US army but fact it is about suicide in an armour brigade. The causes seem threefold. First they are overstretched constantly trying and deploying to Europe or Korea. Secondly their tanks break too often, budget cuts. Lastly they are not actually fighting a war so it seems pointless. One proposal is to permanently station units abroad for longer periods. As in the day ps of BAOR. There is a story here, it’s about US running out of money Niall Ferguson has written about it. But this article is rambling drivel without direction insight or even humour.
If I had a Krona for every supercilious European pr*ck from every failing European nation (or wherever) with their glorified peacock constabularies dishing on the United States, I’d be a f*cking billionaire. Here’s something to consider from another European who actually saw Americans in action: “Americans didn’t shout war-cries to encourage themselves, had no interest in military rituals of glory, dressed like utility workmen, and fought with a frightening economy of movement and a disregard for material. “They fought,” he said, “Like butchers in a hog-pen”, not like soldiers but like workmen doing a hard, dirty job and wanting to finish it as quickly and thoroughly and efficiently as possible. Efficient they certainly were.” But do go on with your deep analysis about “restlessness.” Peace out, MK, from a veteran / son of veteran / father of veteran.
If you could spread this article on an acre of ground the crop yield would be fantastic.
>the US economy is in such a parlous state that ordinary Americans are now borrowing money to pay for groceries
This statement reflects a profound unfamiliarity with American life. For many years in the U.S., most groceries have been paid for with credit cards. This shows up on national income and product accounts as borrowed funds. However, the shoppers pay the money back. There are, of course, sad exceptions where people cannot pay for food but the overall productivity of the U.S. economy is at an all-time high and the U.S. has the highest per capita income of any large country in the world.
What is Kyeyune talking about. Clearly a DEI hire at Unherd. Perhaps time to replace Kyeyune with somebody who doesn’t engage in absolute nonsense.
Whilst I cannot comment (from the UK) about the state of the US Army and National Guard, it seems evident that this author has written an Alice in Wonderland review of his own fantasies regarding the recent Iran-Israel conflict. He most tellingly fails to put the 12-day aerial pummelling of military targets in Iran into the context of a forty year undeclared war between the mullocracy and the State of Israel, and its abrupt acceleration since October 7 2023.
This chap must have been living in a parallel universe, perhaps called Leftieland.
“The Bush years are back. With the war drums now beating once more, America is stumbling, drunk on jingoistic fervour, to the bad old days of the early 2000s.”
FFS! Spare us the verbal diarrhoea!
What an absolutely idiotic essay. I say this as a retired Army officer. The author is engaged in a lot of wishful thinking that reflects some serious Trump Derangement Syndrome. Every use of American troops historically is different. The National Guard was not used in Vietnam because Lyndon Johnson understood how a Guard unit with large losses would affect middle America. That’s why he preferred the more anonymous draft.
Seems to be a lot of hand wringing and pearl clutching without attributable facts.
Par for the course for this idiot. If you’ve read one of his essays you’ve read them all.